"Authenticity"

I've been wondering a lot recently about personal authenticity, and, in that wondering, I've been asking myself why I’m so reluctant to pursue it.

Not long ago, I took a break from what I was doing and sat down to rest for a few minutes. During that time, the following phrase entered my mind (and I’m feeling that it just might be the beginnings of an answer to the above question): "Because no one else is there." Yep...that's what I heard.

I'm beginning to feel that my greatest reluctance to allowing myself to be authentic is the suspicion that THERE WILL BE NO ONE ELSE THERE. Not in terms of another human being, but in terms of the images and ideas I have about myself that I’ve allowed to attach to my own person hood. “There will be no one there but me,” is what I hear inside. “Only me, and no one else.” Not the image of who I think I am. Nor the image I believe others have of me. Nor the image I want others to have of me. Nor the image of the person I wish or hope to be someday. Only me as I am in this moment. All these other images or ideas, which have kept me company for so long and which have provided a great deal of ego “security” as well, will be gone. Perhaps even for forever. It's a little scary, and a bit lonely, to think about.

The image I hold of myself in this moment is just that—an image. But I am not that image. In fact, I don’t even want to be an image. Who wants to be something just imagined when you can be something real? I don’t, and I don’t think I know anyone who, in their heart of hearts, does either. I want to be me…and no one else. I cannot hide from myself any longer. It’s like trying to hide behind a tree in an open, treeless field. It’s just not going to happen. Eyes wide, Dave...it’s time to pop the latch and look a little under the hood…

There are light and dark places within my soul. Each place is, I feel, just as much a part of me as any other. When I accept that who I am is who I am and live in accordance with who I am, I become in my doing a very unique being-integration called “Me-As-I-Am-Being-Me.” When I step away from that integration and venture into the arenas of image or abstract concepts of who or what I should be like or how I want others to see me or even how I THINK God wants me to be, I become a run-of-the-mill dis-integrated being called “Me-As-I-Am-Not-Because-I-Am-Not-Being-Me."  And it's in those times, when I'm pressuring myself to be someone other than who I am, that my life begins to lose all balance as I take on things that aren’t me…things inordinate—a lot like adding a small weight to one element of a mobile. A mobile can respond easily and gracefully to external influences, such as air currents or changes in humidity, so long as those influences don’t attach themselves permanently to any particular element. A mobile, while it may appear to be in a state of complete stasis, is really in a state of moving equilibrium as it continually adjusts ever so slightly to small changes in its environment and yields completely (violently even) to more drastic influences. Soon, though, even after enduring a violent influence, the mobile will return to a state of nearly imperceptible moving equilibrium, and, had you not witnessed the display of just moments before, you never would have known what the mobile had just endured. A mobile's strength is found in it's delicate harmony with itself. Paradox at its best.

Living a balanced life--a life characterized by moving equilibrium--begins with being honest with myself and expands outwardly as that honesty begins to find relief and expression in what I do and say. The outward expression is nothing more than pure (as in, purely natural) follow-through on what's already going on inside me. The beginning point, as always, starts with the practice of no longer lying to myself—a practice which can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do. At least, on my own. Perhaps that’s why I and so many of us live our lives (if you want to call it that) as not much more than walking projections of facade. Our biggest life-pursuits (and worries) often seem to zero in on making sure we're wearing the right costumes and that we've rehearsed sufficiently the lines we wish to speak (or feel we’re supposed to speak) to gain acceptance from the other walking projections around us.

I, personally, would like to put an end to all of this in my own life. I can hear a voice inside saying, “Yo, Davie…it’s time to break your mirrors, dude…time to quench the smoking embers…time to recycle your performance props…time to stop pretending to be a person…and time, AT LAST, to just BE YOU, man.” Me without all my helps? What will that be like? I have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t be as bad as I’m THINKING it might. Reality rarely is. I do have feeling and sensory memories of times alone with myself, and, you know, it wasn’t so bad. So, at this moment in my life, I turn to God, and I ask Him to give me the willingness to see who I am really and to give me the ability to accept me for where I am in this moment…even the parts of me that are heavily mired in the disingenuous. May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to not just know the difference but also to proceed forth with an unconditional friendliness toward myself…the kind of friendliness that lacks even a hint of self-aggression. Only the Holy Spirit can grant that kind of wisdom. The wisdom to completely accept me where I am, but love me enough to urge me to step out from hiding and be the wizard I was created to be rather than just a holographic projection "controlled" by a frightened little being moving frantically behind a curtain somewhere. “Dear God…may Your wisdom come to me in this moment so that I might be a little more of me right now than I ever have before. Amen.”